I am interested in researching neural plasticity, and how it impacts the brain's ability to recover from a variety of neurologic and psychiatric diseases. Specifically, I am interested in the relationship between neural plasticity and cognitive reserve, and discovering how we can harness the brain's potential to adapt in order to enhance quality of life in disorders of the central nervous system. I am interested in combining natural mechanisms of enhancing cognitive reserve, including exercise, diet, social and intellectual activity, with novel mechanisms such as noninvasive brain stimulation and new therapeutic interventions.

I will be focusing my research on disorders of memory and executive function, specifically mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease. I hope to develop and validate a biomarker for neural plasticity in amnestic mild cognitive impairment using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). In the future, this biomarker could be used to predict which patients are most at risk to develop dementia, and identify which patients would be most likely to benefit from future therapies to delay onset of dementia.

Clinical Interests:

I am currently in fellowship for behavioral neurology and neuropsychiatry, focusing on dementia including Alzheimer's disease, as well as traumatic brain injury and neurorehabilitation.

Personal Interests/Hobbies:

I enjoy running along the Charles River, learning how to do crosswords, reading science fiction, and traveling.

Personal Goals

I will seek to develop clinical expertise in treating patients with dementia and other cognitive disorders, as well as learn to design clinical research trials using noninvasive brain stimulation to explore neural plasticity in this population, and eventually develop new therapies to enhance cognitive reserve.